“My dear Rebecca!”
“It would be rather stooping on our side, for the Canninges are little better than traders; but Mrs Canninge is very nice, and I said to her, yesterday—”
“Surely, Rebecca, you did not allude to—to—”
“George Canninge and yourself? Indeed, I did, my dear. Mrs Canninge and I thoroughly understand one another, and I feel sure that nothing would please her better than for George Canninge to propose to you.”
Miss Beatrice sighed softly, and soon after the sisters went up to dress.
For it was a festival day at Plumton All Saints, being that of the annual school feast.
This school feast or treat was rather an ancient institution, and was coeval with the schools, but it had altered very much in its proportions since its earlier days, when the schoolmaster invested in a penny memorandum-book, and went round to all the principal inhabitants for subscriptions, which rarely exceeded a shilling, and had to be lectured by each donor upon the best way of teaching the children under his charge. Those treats first consisted of a ride in one of the farmers’ waggons as far as a field, where the children were regaled with very thin milk and water, and slices of large loaves spotted with currants, which slices were duly baptised in the milk and water, and called by the children—“cake.”
Then there was a great advance to a real tea in a barn, and again a more generous affair through the generosity of one vicar, who had the children all up to the vicarage, and after they had done no little mischief to his flower-beds, sent them home loaded with fruity cakes, and toys.
Then there was a decadence with a tendency towards thin milk and water and country buns, followed by a tremendous rise when Mr William Forth Burge came upon the scene; and the present was the second feast over which he had been presiding genius.
In preparation for this festival, probably for reasons of his own, the patron had gone about smiling a great deal, and rubbing his hands. He had obtained carte blanche from the vicar to do as he pleased, and it had pleased him to say to Miss Burge: